New organiser RCS Sport launched the 2024 version of the race now generally known as the Giro d”Italia Ladies – previously the Giro d’Italia Donne – which may have eight phases from July 7-14, timing that Elisa Longo Borghini believes bodes effectively for a powerful area given the positioning earlier than the Paris Olympic Video games.
“For me it’s the right mixture,” Longo Borghini advised Cyclingnews. “It’s the right race for simply earlier than the Olympics and I believe many different riders will most likely be doing the identical, a minimum of I hope so.”
For the reason that introduction of the Tour de France Femmes in 2022, the proximity of the ladies’s Giro d’Italia to the French race has meant that whereas a number of the huge names have taken on the double, comparable to Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) and Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), however others like Demi Vollering (SD Worx) have chosen to focus purely on the yellow jersey. The Tour de France Femmes, nonetheless, will probably be later this 12 months as a result of Olympics, with the ladies’s street race on August 4 and the French ladies’s tour operating from August 12, as a substitute of in late July.
The Giro d’Italia Ladies will probably be later than ordinary, too, with the race that began on the finish of June in 2023 now beginning within the second week of July. It will imply it continues to overlap with the eye grabbing males’s Tour de France, however with the Giro organisation now aligned with the boys’s occasion there are hopes that the extent of professionalism and media publicity surrounding the long-running ladies’s race will now additionally extra intently align with that seen on the Could Grand Tour.
The organiser and dates aren’t the one modifications as whereas the course of the ladies’s race is but to be revealed, with that saved for a stand-alone announcement, it has been disclosed that there will probably be eight phases, as a substitute of the 9 of 2023 and ten of earlier editions.
“Individuals are at all times debating concerning the size of those stage races however we confirmed on the Tour de France, that solely with eight phases it is an awesome showcase. So I actually don’t take a look at the eight phases of the Giro as one thing that we’re shedding. However absolutely we’re gaining,” mentioned Longo Borghini, focussing on the larger image.
“We’ll achieve plenty of media consideration, spectacle and spectators additionally after which being so near the Olympics it will likely be absolutely attended by plenty of huge stars.”
As to what programs these huge stars will probably be tackling Longo Borghini, who has lined up for 12 editions of the race and twice stood on the general podium, is searching for a difficult route for her thirteenth participation.
“I would love to see a tough Giro d’Italia as a result of we at all times say the Giro is the toughest race in probably the most lovely nation,” mentioned the twin Italian street and time trial champion, making her affection for her homeland clear. “I actually hope that this can match additionally within the ladies’s Giro.”